


RÊVERIE

by WatanabeMaya



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Developing Relationship, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamscapes, Drug Addiction, False Memories, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Inception Vibes mayhaps, M/M, Memories, Memory Alteration, Memory Magic, Memory Related, Memory Trading, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Relationship, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Substance Abuse, be prepared for copious amounts of art metaphors, the miyas and kita run a memory store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatanabeMaya/pseuds/WatanabeMaya
Summary: “You’re staring too much, Rin,” Osamu tells him, voice light and head tipping back with laughter. His body is caged by the four corners of the windowpane, a man bathed in the faint glow of lamplight. “Take a picture,” he teases, then, “it’ll last longer.”
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu, Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu, Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou, Past Suna Rintarou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	RÊVERIE

**Author's Note:**

> another fun take on the who needs memories slogan featuring my favorite inarizaki ship :) pls enjoy my humble offering before the academe robs me of my happiness and vitality of life once again
> 
> disclaimer: i don't own hq

The bells herald the sound of an arrival. Rintarou’s ears perk up from the catalog he’s been reading as the door swings open and a petite woman steps inside. There’s a handbag slung poised over her shoulder; her ears dangling with hoops of tantalizing gold.

“What brings you here today, Manami-san?” the blond shopkeeper greets, voice cutting through the air like butter, all false silk and unnaturally smooth. Rintarou turns his gaze politely back onto the shelves, picking up bits and pieces of the conversation despite his painstaking efforts not to overhear them. “Pleasure or pain?”

“Pleasure,” the woman’s voice chimes, with a giddy ringing laugh. “Whip me up a honeymoon, won’t you? Think: dinner under candlelight, jetsetting to the blue coast of Morocco…”

“And lemme guess, diamonds?”

“Diamonds!” the customer gasps, cheeks flushing with excitement. She puts a hand to her face, raising it as though she was attempting to mask her shock. “Yes to the diamonds! You better not hold back on me there, Atsumu dear. I want the biggest ones!”

“Ya hear that, ‘Samu?” the blond – Atsumu, it seems – hollers. “Make this lady some diamonds. I want her left hand brandishing a ring studded with the world’s finest cut!”

“Got it,” another voice intones boredly. Rintarou peers up from his catalog once again and is greeted by the sight of a familiar face, the same old shopkeeper but this time with hair the color of cool ash instead of that atrocious sunshine yellow dye – they’re twins, Rintarou realizes belatedly while his fingers hover over the paper, an action short of turning the page. The other boy catches his stare.

“And you?” the grey-haired shopkeeper asks, pausing from his task of crushing lime green powder in a mortar. A brief reprieve. “What’s your business with us today?”

“I need–” he says and then pauses. It’s a terrible habit of his, Rintarou knows, the way he always cuts himself off. 

_What are you here for?_ Rintarou hears Atsumu’s voice again pushing itself to the forefront of his mind; can almost hear the other twin probe back with the very same. The question of it forms unbidden on his tongue but nevertheless still present in his gaze, lying in the subtle raise of his brow, curious with inquiry. _Pleasure or pain?_

“There’s something...” Rintarou trails off again. He turns the words over in his head – briefly, carefully, cautiously – and revises them to a point resembling finality, “There’s someone I want to forget.”

“Ah,” the shopkeeper murmurs, the sound of it escaping him in a way Rintarou could tell he had never meant for him to hear. Rintarou watches the grey-haired boy purse his lips before he presses them in together, mouth forced into a tight-lipped smile. His eyes shine with the soft sympathy of recognition. _Pain, then._

❃

_Inarizaki_ is an obscure – but infamous – two-storey fantasy shop nestled in the heart of Hyogo prefecture. Rintarou has stumbled across it in enough newspaper feature articles to give him a run for his money. Now, he doesn’t know of all the details, having once in his naive but petty attempt of sounding like a no-nonsense adolescent played it off like an urban legend – a passing trend, a well frequented haunt – but he’s a grown and desperate man and has heard of its achievements well enough to give it a try. He knows the steepness of the cost for _Inarizaki’s_ services. People pay with their memories, if only to make a single wish come true.

 _They used to call us fantasy spinners,_ Atsumu had told him, taking note of Rintarou’s orders and jotting it down on a memo pad, _memory traders, dreamweavers...Call us whatever you like, Suna-san, but I think the second one is the most accurate. Alchemy’s got this concept of equivalent exchange – it’s the same principle for crafting memories. We can’t pull these kinds of things out of our asses, ya know._

Osamu leads him out to the back. There’s a bar stool waiting for him, he thinks, and a wooden brown daybed. A canopy hangs around it, it hangs loosely like the curtains, luscious with indulgence, the richest shade of jet black. Rintarou looks at the array of memories in the background, ingredients laid out like ornaments to decorate the store. Smoke wisps along the room corners, trails of it lingering in the air and making its way to the back of his mind. Rintarou feels his subconscious pull back into the realm of his dreams.

“That’s the poppy,” Osamu explains and guides Rintarou to lie down on velvet red cushions. “Just close your eyes, Suna-san.” He hands him a metal pipe, thin as a reed, nine fox tails engraved in fine lines along the edges. Dragon scales surround the pattern of the ceramic bowl. “Breathe that in. ‘Tsumu will take the stool.”

Rintarou holds the pipe over his head. His fingers trace over the detailed grooves of the metal, eyes devouring its idle beauty; fascinated by the artistry.

The dreamweaver fiddles with the radio, an antique of sorts left behind by the relative of one of the other shopkeepers. Osamu pops in a cassette tape and takes to the bar stool in his brother’s absence. Rintarou registers the melodic crescendo of piano keys. Debussy is now playing on the speakers.

“Do you miss him?” Osamu asks abruptly, stoic-faced and eyes half-lidded, pensive and yet almost clinical. “This person you’re trying to forget.”

He doesn’t know how to give an answer to that. “He broke my heart,“ Rintarou says instead, voice tired and wan. He sounds defeated. Honest. “I still see him in my dreams at night. It’s driving me crazy.”

“So you miss him,” Osamu concludes. 

Rintarou hums and mulls over the thought. Almost childishly, he holds onto the other’s words to ponder on them for as long as he is able, turning the idea round in his head over and over until he could find for himself a semblance of an answer. He fixes his gaze onto a random point in the ceiling; switches tactics. 

“I guess,” Rintarou sighs and brings the pipe down close to his mouth. His teeth scrape against one corner of its tip. “How does this work again?” 

“Don’t chase the dragon,” the grey-haired boy tuts, “You just smoke the concoction I made for you then trust my brother and I to work our magic.”

❃

Atsumu walks in later, when Rintarou is ten minutes into nursing the sweet pea scented opioid. The dreamweaver’s hands make their way to Rintarou’s hair wordlessly, a gentle touch on the sides of his temples – willing the memories to untangle themselves from his mind. Atsumu waits for the sentiments to take shape, strong hands spinning the memories out of Rintarou and into pools of spun thread; fantasies made to look like something tangible.

Fantasies made to look like something real.

“Don’t worry,” Atsumu’s voice speaks to him, rumbling soft, low and quiet. Rintarou can feel all his secrets spilling out of him. “We’ll help you forget,” Atsumu promises. “You’ll be better in no time.”

Rintarou dwells on the weight of his words. The impossible lightness of its implications. _You’ll be better in no time,_ the dreamweaver had said, as if it were something so easy to fix – a heart wounded by memory and sewn together with patchwork, so close to bursting.

❃

_“Take a picture, Rin,” the boy says when he catches Rintarou staring, glasses perched on his nose and head tipped back with laughter. “It’ll last longer.”_

_“Aren’t I already?” Rintarou throws back, angling his brush as it glissades across the canvas. It starts at the middle, but begins at the end. He paints the city in shades of cadmium, lapis, and manganese. Blue night smears into blond hair, the bright wisps of canary yellow._

_“I can’t believe I’m the subject of your first painting,” he says, a blush spreading to his neck from his cheeks. Winsor red, or alizarin crimson. A dash of amaranth. He is beautiful like this, Rintarou thinks – the body framed by the four corners of the windowpane, a boy bathed by the gentle glow of moonlight._

_“Is it really so hard to believe?” Rintarou murmurs. “Haven’t I always told you that you’re utterly gorgeous?”_

_“No,” the other boy hums, eyes soft and lips curled with amusement. “Remind me.”_

❃

“How much is my bill?” Rintarou asks them at the counter, as another shopkeeper offers a steaming cup of complimentary house tea. _That’s Kita-san,_ Atsumu introduced him with a smile that was almost blinding. Rintarou accepts the beverage and takes a tentative sip. “And, uhm, how am I supposed to pay you? Do you want to take my little sister’s graduation? Can I trade it in for last year?”

“No need. We don’t charge for our extractions,” Kita answers with a small shake of his head. 

“This is more like a charity on your part,” Osamu joins in. Atsumu grins at the artist again and nods enthusiastically in agreement. “You pretty much donated our next batch of ingredients.”

Atsumu slings a heavy arm around Rintarou’s shoulders. The tea threatens to spill out of his hands.

“You’re doing us a great service, Sunarin,” the dreamweaver says in his signature drawl. Rintarou had made the rookie mistake of insisting they drop his honorific a few minutes earlier. “If anything, we’re the ones who owe you. Got any new memories ya want in mind?”

“Feel free to stick around until you’ve decided,” Kita says before he excuses himself. Osamu sends him off patiently as Kita gathers his things to leave. 

“You can ask us for anything,” Atsumu winks. “Anything at all.”

Rintarou nods and finishes his drink in two gulps. He places the cup gently back on the counter in return.

“Spin me a dream,” he says to them, then, “Give me something I’ll always want to remember.”

❃

Osamu is manning the counter alone the next day, the shopkeeper is halfway through eating a rice ball when Rintarou stumbles in. Rintarou looks at the dish in his hands. The color of the filling suggests it’s most likely tuna. 

“‘Tsumu and Kita-san are out running errands,” the dreamweaver explains when he picks up on Rintarou’s expression, the subtle lift of his puzzled brow. “Would you like some onigiri?” Osamu gestures to his plate. “I made them myself.”

Rintarou helps himself to one serving and settles down on the couch reserved for waiting customers. It’s maroon, a dreamy, rich color; the leather of it is peeling at the edges.

“It’s good,” he remarks, a happy sound escaping from the back of his throat as soon as he takes a bite. He chews in slow, thoughtful movements. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d have mistaken you for a chef.”

“Maybe in another life,” Osamu grins.

They make small talk after that, the hours flying over their heads without care. Atsumu is the twin in charge of extracting human memories, Osamu tells him – destroys them once they’re taken or tucks them away in a vial to show off on their shelves. Osamu is the one who later picks up the pieces, who mixes the memories together and a couple crushed petals to steep memory into the essence of the flowers – _because isn’t it better that way, Suna-san, when the illusions smell much sweeter than you’d expect_ – fabricates stories with his hands, mends them all anew.

Rintarou learns more about the dynamics of the _Inarizaki_ dream store, about a certain Akagi who owns a pick-up truck and leases it to do memory deliveries, about Oomimi and Ginjima who run the cafe across the street where Osamu often goes for lunch or when he’s swamped with concocting all sorts of memory mix powders and can’t be bothered to cook his own meals. 

“What about Kita-san?” Rintarou asks, unable to contain the surge of interest that bubbled up inside him. “What does he do?”

“Kita-san does the logistics,” Osamu tells him. He graciously offers Rintarou another cup of house tea. “He used to do the weaving before me, but then he taught me the craft, and soon enough he made me take over. I used to wonder if he resents me for it, actually.”

“Did he?” Rintarou wonders, and he hopes he doesn’t come off as rude. “Was he bitter about the fact you practically stole his job?”

The dreamweaver shakes it off with a smile, relieved. “Nah, I asked him about it but he just shook his head. Said he was happy with what he was doing now, scouring around for ingredients and cultivating them.” His voice softens, as though seemingly fond, “Laughed when he said my memories had a better flavor than his ever did.”

“Like I said,” Rintarou hums, “you’ve got the makings of a great chef.” 

The shopkeeper’s eyes crinkle with mirth. He leans closer and lets his tone drop conspiratorially. “Also,” Osamu says then, raising a flat hand to his cheek in an exaggerated gesture of relaying a poorly kept secret, “he’s dating my brother and didn’t want to get caught making out with ‘Tsumu behind the counter.” Rintarou’s eyes go wide as Osamu leans back into his chair. “It’s bad for the business.”

They make out in the storeroom now, Osamu tells him next.

“Kita-san comes over with the ruse of doing an inventory of their stock, Atsumu says he’s going to help him count poppy tears, next thing you know they—” his voice fades, thoughts trailing off. Rintarou smiles knowingly into the oblivion and shakes off the mental picture of the couple that are threatening to take up space in his head. 

“Yeah, okay, noted, Osamu-san. You can stop there.”

“Right,” Osamu agrees solemnly, and swipes at the tuna mayo off the corner of his mouth. “Okay, I will. Now, what about you, Suna-san? What do you do?”

“I’m a painter,” Rintarou tells him. “I do art reproductions for clients and make replicas of classic works to display in galleries.”

Sometimes he makes them different too, he says, changes to a painting done if and only if made upon request. Rintarou paints over old works to accommodate a stranger’s preference, tiny details he adds or subtracts here and there, just enough to be noticeable but not enough to turn the artwork into something else he’d call his own. It’s all Rintarou can do to mimic the illustrated world; to recalculate pigment stains and dissect an old master’s brushstrokes. It’s another thing altogether to reconstruct a reality from scratch.

“Interesting,” the shopkeeper remarks, resting his chin on his hand. “We’re not that much different then, you and I.”

“No.” Rintarou’s voice is quiet when he disagrees. Because Osamu is content with giving out the products of his life’s work if only to satisfy people for a little while whereas Rintarou is an artist with a talent to take what isn’t his and capture each moment with his paintbrush, immortalizing it for as long as he is able. They _are_ different, fundamentally. “I don’t think so.”

The dreamweaver hums.

“Have you ever painted something yourself, Suna-san?”

“Yeah, I guess...?” Rintarou wrinkles his nose. “I mean, it’s a pretty solitary career, and I’m not the type to do collaborations.”

“Oh, no, sorry,” the shopkeeper shakes his head. “I mean, something original. Do you have anything from, say, your personal collection?”

“What? No,” Rintarou scoffs, affronted. As if Osamu had just floated to him an idea of an absolutely terrifying thing. Why would he, Rintarou wonders, when he cannot trust his hands to capture the beauty of his life’s every moment? Why would he if he had nothing for himself to value, nothing precious to call his own?

“Why not?”

“I’ve never learned,” he admits as he smiles back at the dreamweaver, dully. What was the point of doing so anyway? Rintarou has never brought himself to try to understand. He has long since been taught to see the world through an outsider’s lens – to replicate the gleam of light, the stories of love, through the eyes of another.

“Paint something for me then,” Osamu asks, though not kindly. The words glare back at Rintarou, daunting. Rintarou wills himself to rise up to the challenge. “Try it out. It doesn’t have to be something big. Can be those cliche sunsets people always like, or some still-life of my favorite plate of onigiri. Just–” Osamu breathes out his nose, expression softening as he relaxes, “–paint me something. Anything. I just want to see.”

“See what?”

“What the world looks like to you,” Osamu says, again, “I want to see.”

Is it as beautiful as what all the novels say? Like how they make it out to be in the movies? Rintarou imagines this is what Osamu must wonder. The world is always more vivid in the eyes of an artist, people often told him, the colors a little more honest, the scenery just a tad bit more surreal. _But_ _what would he think_? Rintarou can’t help but worry, when Osamu turns to look at him, starry eyed and dizzy with possibility, expression washed out with the foolish prospect of a petty hope. _What would he think_? Rintarou can’t help but care, when Osamu stares deeply into his eyes and marvels at the meaning he might find.

❃

_Strokes are important,_ Rintarou recalls his professor had once said to him then, two months into his first year at his university’s fine arts program. _Your starting point and your ending point are not the only things that matter. The route you take and the way you’ll get there have just as much, if not greater, value._

❃

_Suna_ turns to _Rintarou_ turns to _Rin_ . _Osamu-san_ becomes _Osamu-kun_ and eventually gets worn down to a simple _Osamu_.

They’re lounging at the poolside one afternoon thanks to Atsumu’s offer to tour Rintarou around town. It is Saturday. They’ve already closed shop. Kita has been meaning to take a trip to Sendai to claim some new ingredients, like sunshine crow feathers and royal blue ivy leaves. The twins are familiar enough with the staff to successfully wheedle its manager into reserving the space for them to enjoy on their rare day off. His name is Ojiro Aran and they claim he is a close friend. Rintarou confirms this fact from the man himself, when _Aran-kun_ nods his head with a grimace and admits he’d been a victim of the twins’ relentless pestering since their early years of childhood. 

The pool is an endless expanse of white, the tiles a pattern of cyan blue. It is summer. Atsumu has taken off for the restroom, already done with swimming freestyle in a set of five laps. Osamu has opted to stay behind with Rintarou, relaxing on one of the lounge chairs and sipping idly on a glass of long island. It is only the two of them for now. The glass barriers surrounding the edges of Reso Naruohama make Rintarou feel more like they are trapped in an aquarium, a private exhibition for all the world to see.

“Rin,” Osamu calls out to him, when Rintarou is lying on his back and floating along the surface. Sunlight dances across the walls in pyrrole orange like lazy brushstrokes painting an empty canvas. Ultramarine, then quinacridone red. Rintarou takes in the picture of Osamu drenched by the sun with a contented smile on his face, his hair yellow ochre in the light.

Above him, the canopy is decorated with foliage, vibrant and viridian and green. It stands proud, lifted by strong white columns; the arch of a well-constructed Greek pillar. In his brief stay of the past two hours, Rintarou has already decided that he hates looking at the plants, absolutely despises the way that they mock him, beautiful in their artificial glamor – ignorant of their fantasy. Their fakeness. 

“Wanna join me for a swim?” Rintarou offers when he notices Osamu has finished drinking his iced tea. Atsumu still hasn’t returned from his post-exercise shower. Rintarou wonders if he ever will.

“Sure,” Osamu shrugs and glances down at the pool, almost wary. “It’s not cold now, is it?” the dreamweaver asks. “If my leg muscles freeze down there, I won’t be able to tread myself afloat and I’ll die.”

Rintarou laughs. His voice bounces across the water and ripples through the air; the sound of it, almost surreal. It is Saturday. It is summer. They are trapped in a liminal space. The pool is so empty, it makes Rintarou feel like the world is only theirs. In this world, there is only the two of them. In this world, there is no room for secrets.

“It’s only cold at first,” Rintarou promises. He is staring at Osamu’s ankle, bobbing up and down in an impatient and imaginary beat. 

On the other side of the near horizon, there are stairs that stand without a destination. Rintarou thinks of it as a rest stop; a place where people go when they’re tired to take a break. He wonders how many people have swum over there to rest. Six steps up and in the middle of the pool, six steps up and leading to nowhere. 

“Come on,” Rintarou says and waits for Osamu to dive, or at least maybe take his outstretched hand. Whichever works. The hem of his shorts sway with the flow of a generated current. It relaxes him. “I won’t let you drown.”

“Alright,” Osamu gives in. He flashes back a smile, featherweight and fleeting. “Alright, Rin, I’ll join you.”

It is Saturday. It is summer. Rintarou is standing alone in the pool, waist deep in the water. 

❃

“Spin me another,” Rintarou demands when he wakes, pipe in his hands as he lies on the firm mattress of the daybed. 

“It’s gonna cost ya,” Osamu tells him this time, voice slipping back into his old dialect, an unshakeable habit. His hands are already preoccupied with the mortar. The dreamweaver measures out two milligrams of memory powder, crushed threads of chartreuse green and phthalocyanine blue. “We don’t do things without profit around here, ya know.” He adds the rosemary. A sprinkle of lavender. “That’s bad for business.”

“You can take my first kiss,” Rintarou tells him. Osamu stops working and closes the ingredient vials, the firm click of the lids loud over the piano playing from the speakers. “Will that be enough?”

“Yes, it’ll do,” the dreamweaver says, before he stands to excuse himself. Rintarou watches the nervous bob of his throat, the faint movement of another man’s Adam’s apple. “I’ll mix you another one, then. Let me just fetch ‘Tsumu.”

Rintarou nods and watches him go. The door swings to a close, leaving Rintarou alone to dwell on his thoughts, the quiet thrill of reliving a learned memory. The ceiling above him is an endless expanse of white. Rintarou brings the fox pipe to his mouth and closes his eyes. Loses himself to the music. 

❃

Osamu kisses him in the back alley of the memory shop when he gets off of work, lips soft and searching and aching with desire, the moment deepening underneath the brilliant rose of neon streetlights. His kisses are summer and taste like the rain. It is everything Rintarou has ever dreamed of. 

“Another,” Rintarou mumbles breathily against Osamu’s lips, fingers burning with a curious desperate want. He smells of poppies and musk, of sweat and larkspur. Osamu’s hands are in his hair, the pull of his grip firm against Rintarou’s scalp. Rintarou lets out a soft moan when Osamu kisses him again. The moon is watching them without a sound. 

_Another_ , Rintarou begs the moment Osamu pulls away. _Another, another._

❃

The poppies today are mixed with angel’s breath. Osamu gives him a sampler batch of memories and instructs Rintarou to take them in small doses, no more than two milligrams, and in infrequent intervals. 

“We call it ‘reCOLLECTION,’” Atsumu boasts proudly, jazz hands shimmering to show off the products displayed in Osamu’s direction, “clever, no?”

“Very creative,” Rintarou answers dryly. 

Atsumu pouts at his lack of enthusiasm. Rintarou shrugs; he has never been the type to be easily entertained by puns. Kita pats Atsumu’s back in a comforting gesture of false camaraderie. _At least I can trust some people to appreciate my wit,_ the shopkeeper grumbles out of puffed cheeks. He looks childish and bitter. It’s almost silly. Kita shakes his head at the blond’s antics. Rintarou doesn’t hold himself back from laughing at the dreamweaver’s expense.

Osamu ignores them.

“This is for Brazil,” the dreamweaver says, when Rintarou has finished torturing his brother. Osamu raises a slim index finger to point at the different memories before landing on a sachet of violet and crushed lavender. “It’s based on a memory one of our clients gave us last week,” he explains. Next to it, another pack but in tuscan yellow. “That’s for Beijing,” Osamu says, pointing again. “This one’s Russia. Switzerland – it’s the one with a ferris wheel you requested. And the jelly sticks you like.” 

Rintarou inspects the remaining memory packets of kaleidoscope colors. Each of them are labelled with their respective destinations in Kita’s neat penmanship: _GONDOLAS IN ITALY, VIENNESE OPERA, LE LOUVRE FRANCE, HONG KONG DISNEYLAND, ARGENTINA._ There is _WEEKEND IN SEPTEMBER_ encapsulated in a shade of burnt sienna _._ In periwinkle, _HOKKAIDO ON NEW YEAR + ICE CREAM._ Lastly, more enigmatic than the rest: _MIDNIGHT._

At the counter, Rintarou watches Atsumu stuff the packages into a gift bag with quiet fascination. Rintarou bows to express his thanks, promising to let them know which memories interest him best. He takes the petite bag with eager hands and a subdued smile on his face. 

“Don’t chase the dragon,” Osamu reminds him kindly. 

❃

“I used to paint landscapes,” Rintarou says when he wakes up, body pressed next to Osamu’s in the cramped space of the wooden daybed. “Not that I wanted to, but we were required to do some paint studies when I was still taking up my degree in school.” 

The dreamweaver stays quiet which prompts for Rintarou to continue. He tells Osamu about the exercises he had to do, the techniques one picks up when honing a craft down in the big city. He tells him so in tales so regaling, tells him the kinds of views you only chance upon in Tōgō – of the harbor that led up to endless hues of a persian blue sea, of lilac shades of the late afternoon sky. 

“Why don’t you go back to it?” Osamu asks him then.

“I haven’t done it in years, I’m probably rusty,” Rintarou shrugs, and waves a hand out towards the window, gesturing to faraway rows of rice paddy fields on the other side. “The sunlight in your place is too fickle. Not to mention the plants. I’m not experienced with mixing those colors under a time limit,” he explains, “there’s too many greens I wouldn’t know how to compute fast enough.”

“You can take your time,” Osamu offers, like an adjustment. A compromise. “Hyogo’s not as busy as the cities near the capitol. There’s no rush for you to head back to Aichi, is there?” Rintarou understands enough of Osamu to tell that this is the dreamweaver’s way of asking him to stay.

“No rush at all,” Rintarou agrees, mouth rigid as he forces out a smile. Osamu looks at him without a word, mouth pressed into a line like water that forms on the sidewalk after a particularly heavy downpour, a remnant of the rain – stagnant. Stale. Waiting. The way the weather tells him, _Maybe I’ll get back to it in a while_ , like a secret whispered between droplet and cloud, _Maybe I’ll leave._

❃

_“Kiss me again, won’t you?”_

❃

“Again,” Rintarou says on the night Osamu makes love to him. Strong arms wrap around the artist’s lithe waist. Rintarou allows himself to melt under the dreamweaver’s touch. “Don’t let me forget this,” he begs, “I don’t want to forget, Osamu. I don’t–”

Osamu cuts him off; locks their lips again. Rintarou etches the sight of him to memory – burnt umber eyes, the vermillion of his cheeks, hair dyed in undertones of grey. Osamu is vicious when he kisses him, slipping his tongue in as Rintarou feels his soul ripped apart; holds him with clockwork nimble hands, movements meticulous and deliberate, the quick dart of his tongue careful enough to keep him from being eaten whole. 

“Again,” Rintarou begs and wraps his arms around broad shoulders, digs his nails into the large of the other’s back. He wonders what Osamu would feel like under his hands, if he were as fragile as his touch, if he would break or bleed. Rintarou lets go. There are scratches on the dreamweaver’s back, irritated and red. His nails leave half-crescents on the surface, flushed from the pressure but not enough to draw blood. They are as fickle as the waxing of the moon. The waning of the moment. 

“Again,” Rintarou orders and Osamu is quick to comply.

The dreamweaver traces kisses along the narrow spaces of his ribcage, sucks it lightly with the tip of his mouth. Rintarou wonders if this is how a man marks his territory, labels it with colors in place of his name – scarlet, violet, then oak. Rintarou thinks of the transition. He wonders if Osamu thinks of his existence as delicate, the type to easily bruise.

“Again,” Rintarou says, lips numb, breaths sharp and stuttering. He is wanton with pleasure. Desperate with need. He will remember this, he insists, from the taste of their breaths to the burn of his lungs. “Osamu,” Rintarou calls, tone caught between half a demand and half a plea. A gasp, a whine, a whimper. He is clawing up for air. “Again, Osamu, _please–_ ”

Their limbs tangle in the sheer cotton of the sheets, skin pressed against skin, hands wandering up his chest, down his spine. He is panting now, their bodies aching and sore. Rintarou watches the sweat drip down the dreamweaver’s temples, feels his own legs pooling with a damp and sticky heat. 

“Don’t chase the dragon, Rin,” Osamu whispers, voice rough as he bends closer to speak. He smells of poppies and musk, of sweat and larkspur. Osamu’s lips graze Rintarou’s ear. His breath is hot against his neck. Rintarou’s gaze is drawn to the dip of his collarbone, the slick of his nape, the angle of his jaw. The apple of his throat bobs as he swallows.

“ _Another_ , then,” Rintarou whispers, taunting and breathless. He shuts his eyes. There is a pressure against his waist, a push and a pull; the subtle shift of their positions. Osamu moves his hips. Rintarou curls into his touch. 

Osamu kisses him again. He does not want to forget.

❃

“What are we?” Rintarou asks later when Osamu spends the night, body enveloped in the other’s arms. He wonders if his voice is enough to give away his unease – the fleeting sentiment; the inflection of it. 

Osamu kisses him softly on the top of his head. Rintarou lets the dreamweaver pull him in closer, listens to the steady thrum of his pulse like a comfort, the gentle press of his heartbeat. 

“Whatever you want us to be, Rin,” he hears Osamu whisper to him in the quiet, “Whatever you want.”

❃

Osamu visits him when it snows. 

Rintarou is painting when it happens; hears the sound of his front door creaking open as Osamu lets himself into the artist’s newly rented apartment. It comes as no surprise. Rintarou had given him a spare key a week ago in case of emergencies. 

“I made stir-fry,” Osamu says in lieu of a greeting. “Plus there’s leftover udon from the lunch ‘Tsumu and I had earlier.” He crosses his arms; leans against the studio door frame. “What are you doing?”

“Work,” Rintarou says. He is recreating _Konohana Sakuya Hime_ by Domoto Insho upon a client’s request. The deadline is set to be four days from now. His progress is slow. So far, only the scenery has been filled in – daphne blue over valspar trunks, yellow dandelions among the weeds, the faded pinks of a _sakura_ branch in the foreground. The true subject is still missing.

“Looks good,” Osamu hums.

Rintarou moves his brush away from the canvas and frowns. “It’s not yet done.”

There are blanks on the canvas for where the cherry blossom princess will go, an abandoned cavity that has carved itself into the empty space, a contrast that screams loudly to underscore her absence. Rintarou has yet to paint her figure in, but his hands do not quite remember how exactly the princess will lie.

He knows, in theory, that it begins with sketching out the body of a woman. She is dressed in white and wears her hair down loosely. One hand – the left or the right? – lies limply in front of her while the other hand is raised gracefully at her side. She is combing through her long ebony tresses. One of her fingers is bent up. Rintarou can’t remember whether the color of her necklace is a celeste or a turquoise.

“Still good,” the dreamweaver insists before abandoning him briefly to fetch a Sapporo from Rintarou’s fridge. “It’s good so far!” Osamu hollers the last statement from the kitchen. 

Rintarou continues painting. Osamu is still busy, the sounds of shuffling indiscreet as he rummages through the cabinets in search of a snack. Rintarou can hear one of his neighbors playing _Reverie in F Major_ on the piano across the hall. The walls are thin. Winter in Hyogo is colder than he remembers. 

When Osamu returns, he takes the free spot behind Rintarou and plops down onto the floor. The artist turns around to the sight of the grey-haired laying out a napkin in front of him, potato chips, and two tall cans of _Premium Black._

“Osamu,” Rintarou throws the question back, “What are you doing?” 

The dreamweaver grins. “ _Hanami._ ”

Rintarou snorts. 

“It’s hardly the season.”

“What are you talking about?” Osamu gestures to Rintarou’s work in progress. “It’s spring in there, isn’t it? You made more than half of the background. Look,” he points proudly, beaming, “the flowers are already in bloom.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Rintarou rolls his eyes. 

Osamu revels in the attention. 

“You love me for it.” 

❃

There’s another customer inside when Rintarou drops by to visit the memory store. It’s a teenager with black hair and olive green eyes, and he squints at the _Inarizaki_ catalog when he tries to read the product labels. 

He probably has bad eyesight, Rintarou thinks, and makes a mental note to tell the boy to get his eyes checked later. He thinks the raven-haired would do well with glasses.

Rintarou takes to the maroon couch and waits for his turn. Osamu notices him from his station and waves a hand to call him over. The door to the back room is left ajar. Rintarou steals a glance at Atsumu’s work when he passes, watches as careful fingers weave the boy’s memories into the midnight fabric of an imaginary tapestry. In a second, Atsumu shreds it all apart with his hands. 

“How was Germany?” Osamu asks, warranting his attention. He is measuring out powder into a ziplock, weighing the fantasies out on a scale. No more than two milligrams, as always, Rintarou remembers. 

“It was great,” he replies. “The museum moment was helpful, too, since my next job deals with one of the works by Ernst.”

“I’m glad,” the dreamweaver says. Osamu pinches the edge of the bag with his forefinger and runs along the seal with his thumb. Atsumu exits the store room. “I made this for you,” Osamu tells him when he is finished.

Rintarou snatches the memory packet with earnest fingers, expression gleeful as he considers what’s inside. The powder is flaxen, with specks of juniper. 

“Aniseed,” Osamu corrects as Rintarou reaches for the fox pipe. He catches the sound of bell chimes as the raven-haired boy walks out the store. Osamu ushers him to the back as Rintarou settles into his usual spot on the daybed. He lights the poppies over the lamp.

“Don’t chase the dragon,” Osamu warns.

“I won’t,” Rintarou promises and shakes off the shopkeeper’s concern. He savors the taste of the smoke, a saccharine delirium familiar on his lips. “I won’t, I won’t.”

❃

“You wear glasses now?” 

“Huh?” Osamu looks up from his desk and away from his papers, face pinched with an unreadable expression. Rintarou passes it off as being simply confused. He never told Osamu he had plans of visiting his house today. “Oh,” Osamu says. He must have caught him off guard. “Yeah? Yeah, I do.”

“Since when?” Rintarou mumbles with a tilt of his head, curious.

“Since always,” Osamu answers breezily. He’d left the television on in the living room; some documentary on composers is now playing Debussy. Osamu taps on the plastic wire of the frame resting against his left temple. “I use them for reading,” he explains over the noise of the television. The piano drones on in the background, a melodic discord.

“Oh.”

“You’re staring too much, Rin,” Osamu tells him, voice light and head tipping back with laughter. His body is caged by the four corners of the windowpane, a man bathed in the faint glow of lamplight. “Take a picture,” he teases, then, “it’ll last longer.”

Almost greedily, Rintarou reaches for his sketchbook. He zips open his bag and plucks out his supplies with a practiced ease, graceful in his movements. _Be honored, you’re going to be the subject for my first original work,_ Rintarou says to him then, and the other man simply nods his head in satisfied agreement. 

Osamu listens when Rintarou instructs him not to move; smiles, even, when Rintarou plops down onto the floor – his new work station – and asks him to strike a pose. 

“Have I ever told you just how gorgeous you are like this?” Rintarou says, twirling the paintbrush in his hands.

“No,” Osamu answers, eyes like honey, chuckling and warm. “Remind me.”

Blue night smears into ash brown. The effect it achieves is a faded charcoal grey. Rintarou dunks his brush into the water and washes out the pigments. He fills the walls with shades of manganese, then, for Osamu’s shirt, a gentle mix of lapis blue and cadmium orange. A blush of red dances on his cheeks – winsor, alizarin, amaranth. The colors are darker where his clothes fold. Osamu props one leg up on the chair and watches; tucks his knee closer to his chest and holds still. 

Behind him, Rintarou paints the scenery in pale shades of canary yellow.

❃

Rintarou wakes to the soft click of the light switch, the chime of the bells as Osamu’s figure walks out the front door.

“That’s ‘Tsumu,” the dreamweaver says from the other side of the store in greeting. Osamu is wiping down the windows and rearranging mementos on the shelves. Flecks of dust are floating suspended in the air. “I told my brother I didn’t want to wake you, so he said he’d go on ahead. Let me know when you can stand. I need to lock up soon.”

Rintarou rubs at his eyes and rises from the daybed, back sore despite having rested on the velvet cushions. The room is dim; Osamu’s face is only half-lit by a pale white light. Someone had already extinguished the fire in the lamp. 

The last few bars of Debussy are playing on the store’s antique radio, the tenor of piano keys softening into diminuendo, a gentle hush. The room falls for a second into silence, a lapse in the air, before the song picks up again with a chord played in pianissimo. The melody rises slowly in a loop, a subtle run of the eighth notes. An inevitable perpetuity.

“Also, sorry, but could you clean up after yourself?” Osamu asks as he’s tossing out poppy stems and the withered petals of a hydrangea. In his other hand is a plastic bag overflowing with forget-me-nots. Rintarou listens attentively as the other man gives out his instructions, “–wipe down the tip of the mouthpiece and just throw out the memories in there. I’ve got a wastebasket under the table.”

Rintarou nods. “Sure, Osamu.”

The dreamweaver stops to give Rintarou a long look. Rintarou blinks back dumbly at Osamu’s lean figure, remembers the sight of him once leaning against the edges of his apartment frame, arms crossed and deep in thought. He is halfway out the door. The final notes of Debussy are still playing softly on the radio.

Rintarou clears his throat again to speak.

He is cut off by the small shake of the other’s head. Osamu doesn’t let him say anything else; instead, just smiles back at Rintarou politely with a gentle and knowing, “Thanks, Suna-san.”

Osamu leaves the room to throw out the perishables. His exit is announced by the telltale clanging of the metal, a set of keys that dangled from his left hand. Rintarou watches him go. 

Alone, Rintarou unmounts the ceramic from the pipe saddle and disassembles the metalwork from the rest of the apparatus. He goes to the sink and runs the mouthpiece under the water as instructed, then wipes it down with a clean cloth for good measure. He unscrews the cap and rests it on the surface of the table; prepares to throw its contents into the plastic bin. 

Curiously, he peers into the bowl.

Inside lies a dark mass of used poppy tears no bigger than the size of a single pea. The memories mixed inside of it have faded into a dull grey, the ashes a far cry from their previous state of glory. Rintarou remembers seeing the powder mixed by Osamu only mere hours ago, the striking vibrancy of its shade, a history tinted in the rosy green-gold of halcyon. He scrapes the pea-sized paste out of the ceramic with his index finger and scoops it out of the hollow space. The fantasies stick to his fingertips stubbornly, adamant in their refusal to be so easily shaken off. He flicks the memories into the air. They cake into his nails, a past burrowed deep into the skin like specks of nostalgia, a weightless pleasure, and oh, _oh — well isn’t that something?_ Rintarou marvels. How wonderful it must be, how precious, to hold a lifetime in his hands. 

**Author's Note:**

> some things:  
> -special shoutout to my anonymous friend who prompted me to write that pool scene, to my soulmate beta ha-chan for her lovely comments and ideas, and to E for renewing her friendship contract with me hahahah love u all <3  
> -chasing dragons was a euphemism for smoking opium  
> -for any inaccuracies on the opium smoking/vaporization process pls pretend that it can be remedied by magic (bc i only did my research when i wrote out that last scene oops)  
> -pls dont do drugs  
> -thank you for reading <3
> 
> hype with me about hq on [twitter](https://twitter.com/onigiri_maya)


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